From the Void Itself
by SardonicDear
Summary: Hawke had always seen the harm that could come of a maleficar, that she could be overcome by a demon and destroy the ones she loved. But, never would she submit to using blood magic, not even for her own life. But what about another's? Fenris/F!Hawke captured and tortured. Constructive criticism welcome.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

"This is the last time you and your group oppose me, Hawke."

The Knight-Commander paced the room of her office, coming around the cherry desk that had been so neatly organized before she'd thrown down the reports. My name was blazoned across all of the pages. Damage reports, missing people, suspicious activity and murder. The blonde woman smiled softly then, out of character. She pushed a few pieces closer to me with a metal sheathed finger, the loose curls of her hair brushing out of the red hood she wore pulled above her head. _Apostate_, read across the top of the first page. _Assault in The Hanged Man_, viciously stabbed out from the second, my eyes picking out Anders' name amongst the scribble. _Association with Coterie Murders, Breaking and Entering in the Alienage, Accomplice to Wanted Apostate, Association with a Wanted Fugitive, Suspicious Activity Concerning Guard Captain…_

"You think I do this to _oppose_ you, Meredith?" I nearly laughed. "Have I done nothing but show my support for your solution for capturing mages?"

Her face broke then, "Do you not think that I am aware that for every task you complete under my name, you stain it further with your dealings in Darktown and Lowtown? You don't think that every person in Kirkwall is well aware that I overlook your own illegal magic for the sake of your being The Champion?! Kirkwall would be a safer and more stable place for me to run if you didn't leave such a mark on everything you touch."

I threw an arm out. "I do nothing to cause you strife, even though you have me turning on my own kind so that you may reap the benefits of having the least incidental Circle watch."

The calm façade came back to her face again, the switch becoming a disturbing occurrence in our conversation. "Someday, I'll make you understand. But, it is of no consequence, Hawke." She took a deep breath, the action somehow forced and artificial. "Please, let me keep you no longer."

"So you just happen to push these papers around me for no reason at all, just to tell me that I'm being a nuisance with my existence?" I said, raising a brow.

I saw her bite the inside of her cheek. "Of course not."

"If you're asking me to leave, I can't," I snapped. "If you think that I'm going to let you run my home like a prison, you've got another thing coming. I do not want any more angst between us, but I will not be pushed like this."

The unnatural smile came across her face. "You'll understand one day how nice it is when everyone behaves," she said softly. "You're dismissed."

I left the Templar's quarters unnerved. Something was amiss with Meredith. I had expected to be showered with wrath from standing against her. It was true that my entire relationship with her was an unspoken agreement to keep myself out of the Circle and my comrades out of prison – or worse. But that was growing weak, I could tell.

The first thing I needed to do was to forewarn Fenris and Anders of this, seeing as they were the most vulnerable if, for some reason, Meredith pressed this even further.

The tensions between the Orsino and Meredith were growing more and more passionate every brush they could get. Blood mages, illegal Rite of Tranquility, broken phylacteries, rogue Templars – every turn seemed to hold a new accusation, a new amount of pressure put on me to act in Meredith's place now that she was appointed viscount.

I didn't know how much longer I could drag myself and my friends through this torture.

It had always been like this, though usually it wasn't just myself that was causing all the strife. Bethany had been a contributor to it as well… but this time she wasn't around to help me save our skins.

The mansion had been in a mess since he had taken it from his previous master, Denarius. A few of the upstairs windows were broken and there were tiles missing from the floor inside, pieces of the stone shattered and brushed into corners. Glass shards, empty crates and overturned furniture still littered the floor after nearly six years of being there. I shook my head and made a mental note to myself that I needed to help him clean up, eventually.

"Fenris?" I called out into the estate, my voice fading into the walls. "Hello? Anybody home?"

An echo of a bemused chuckle appeared just before he did, placing both of his spiked gloved hands on the top of the railing and leaning on them slightly. He stood just taller than I, a mess of bright white hair partially hanging in front of his angular face. Deep green eyes bore out from dark eyebrows which were raised at my surprise visit. Upon the elf's chin, starting just below his lip, were two bright white lines, curving down beneath his jaw and down his throat, disappearing into his armor, but not before branching out into smaller lines.

"Is it Ferelden custom to let yourself into other people's houses?" he asked, his tone light.

I smiled as I made my way across the antechamber. "I knew the door was unlocked. Besides, who else would let themselves into your house? It looks like it harbors demons and other nefarious things."

A smirk pulled up a corner of his mouth.

"I had to come by," I said, my voice sounding uneasy, even to me. "It's Meredith…"

He rolled his eyes before pushing himself off the stone railing and into the back room where a fire burned in the hearth surrounded by a few chairs and benches. Off to the other side of the room was a table with a few leaves of paper and a few bottles of wine that I assumed were empty.

"She's… crazy," I announced rather bluntly. "You'd think that she'd laugh a whole lot more than she does for the amount of insanity in that woman."

Fenris sat in a red armchair that looked to have been rather expensive at the time of its purchase – it had seen better days. I didn't sit, instead I folded my arms and glanced out one of the only whole windows in the stolen estate – perhaps out of paranoia or the fact that I was slightly alarmed that already the sky was coloring itself oranges.

"So you think something's going to happen?" he prodded.

I shook my head, my eyes drifting back to him as I brushed a piece of hair from my face. "I don't think so, but I know something is definitely going on. She has papers on us all, Fenris. You, me, Anders, Aveline, the whole lot." I took a few steps around the small round table and then back again. "She's…. biding her time, I think. I don't know."

Dark brows pulled over olive eyes as their owner shifted in his seat slightly. "We knew this, why so worried now?"

My gaze returned to him, grazing over his face before I closed my eyes and inhaled a cleansing breath. "It's probably nothing, but I got a bad feeling over this when I was with her," I admitted. "You are one of the most vulnerable to this. They'd ship you off to Tevinter again."

"If they dared try," he said, his voice dripping black challenge. When I opened my eyes again, he was looking up at me. "Do you really think me such a terrible warrior that a few Templars would take me to the ground?" he attempted to jest.

Was this the time? Probably not. "I… am worried for you…. She is an evil, twisted woman…" I heard my voice say.

Fenris was quiet for a few seconds, a menagerie of emotions passing over his face before he decided to stand. "I'll be fine…" he assured softly. "Nothing's going to happen to me…."

"Good –" That was all I could get out before something sent a thud through my torso. Down on my left protruded the black tip of an arrow, red seeping from around it and soaking into my robes.

There was no pain from the shoulder, as I had expected, but the sight was shocking. My brain had a hard time comprehending the fact that there was a weapon that had been lodged into my body. What was it doing there? This mansion was a safe place, there was no one that was going to harm us here. Cloth had torn from around the metal tip of the arrow, glazed in a shining coat of the crimson that drained from the hole in the flesh behind it. The proximity of the weapon to my face vexed me for a few moments, I could see every grain in the wood, the scratches on the tip of the—  
It was then that I felt the pain. Blooming from the red, my left arm felt nearly useless to move lest fire shoot down the length. I willed myself to snap the end of the arrow off – a wave of nausea rolling over me when I did – and yank it free from the back of my shoulder. My heartbeat in in my ears as the blood flows freely now from the puncture.

"Hawke!"

My name is being called by a familiar voice and suddenly I remember where I am. My eyes search wildly around the room for him, catching a glance as his gauntlet of light is forced into a man's chest and a dull cracking sound comes from within the victim, his expression frozen in that of surprise and pain from when life still clung to him.

A flood of glimmering armor rushed from the door, some bearing the Templar's insignia and some not, as I take my first steps towards him. I pull upon the face and force the mana down into my right hand, calling upon frost that I could lay across the doorway and perhaps buy us enough time to escape. As the spell had touched the air, it was sucked clean and dry from my body, along with any of the mana I had pooled for use. My arm went weak as its energy source served to feed the twenty or so men that forced themselves into the room.

In a mild rush of panic, I remembered the small dagger Isabella insisted I carried with me. _"You rely too much on that silly little stick. Here's a big girl weapon. Flash __**that **__at the boys and you'll have their attention."_

I slipped the knife from its place on my wide leather belt and lunged towards the Templar that had attempted to hold me, aiming the metal for a bit of exposed neck as the pirate had shown me. He pulled at my mana even more, my arm weakening to where it was no struggle at all for him to grip my wrist and twist it around, the limb dropping my knife and had been brought around until it was pinned between my shoulder blades. I made a small pained noise come from my throat before I was acutely aware of cold metal searing into my neck.

Fenris had cleaved the head from one of the mercenary's shoulders, blood misting the shining breastplate he adorned and dotting the brightly lit lyrium in his flesh, and had drawn back again when a woman's voice echoed through the hall.

"One more move and The Champion's last hour has arrived."

Muscle tensed against the momentum, pulling and tightening flesh in ripples beneath his skin as he looked over to the threat. His movement halted, emotion passing over his face as I could see him formulate a plan. The blade at my neck pressed a bit deeper, small beads of moisture falling from the polished metal. I winced slightly as I was caught nodding my head to any form of combat that Fenris had established in his head, my wrists twisted until I could feel the ligaments in my shoulders begin to tear with crunching pops.

"Drop your weapon. Now."

He hesitated for a second, his eyes sweeping the oppressors before he decided that his chances of taking out six archers with arrows knocked were not favorable. Slowly his sword came to the ground, hitting the tile with a heavy _thunk_. Templars rushed him, twisting his arms behind his back and binding them before delivering a kick to the back of the knees and driving him to the ground.

"Isn't it so much nicer when everyone just… behaves?"

I flinched at the word, my eyes darting up to the woman who held the sword to my neck.

It wasn't Meredith, no, but it was someone I had seen come in and out of her office a few times in the short while that I had been working for her; a nameless upper ranking officer that held no real importance to me before this day, my life now in her hands. She knelt in front of me, smearing the small droplets of life across the flesh of my throat with the tip of her blade.

"Someone's been a bad, bad girl," she mocked, grinning sadistically. Angular and harsh in nature, her face was framed in long strands red hair, the majority tied back with a leather thong.

I inhaled sharply, my shoulder protesting against any movement. "I admit it, I came into his house without knocking. I –" the Templar behind me pushed my hands further up my spine, an audible pop coming from my right shoulder. I heard a noise similar to that of an injured animal, high pitched and muffled between teeth, before I realized I had made it.

The woman's smile deepened. "My, my, this one has some fight in her, doesn't she?" She laughed blackly. "Meredith is going to love that…."

"I'm assuming this is a big misunderstanding and you confused the word hospitality with brutality when you came to get me," I spoke again, warm wet spreading down the front and back of my robes. "I didn't think breaking and entering usually required the whole team."

The woman gazed lovingly down at her sword and nodded. "It seems Meredith has a bone to pick with you. She is most upset with your flaunting about… Breaking all the rules she's set down to keep everyone safe…. And now, you're not playing fair with the others." She stood. "Kill the elf and bring his body, she just needs the Champion alive and we don't want him running back for reinforcements. Take her back to the holding cells, Meredith wants all the time she can get before the magister gets here."

The Templar holding Fenris mechanically pulled a short dagger from his belt, bending and putting the tip of the knife at his neck, tensing to draw it across.

I could picture the actions before they would even arrive; the blade would draw a neat line across his throat, he would give me one last look with those burning emerald eyes and I would get to watch as the life bled from them and out his neck. The beautiful elf would be thrown unceremoniously onto the ground, where he would lie until Meredith needed him. Remorse stabbed through my chest more painfully than any weapon could.

"No! No! Wait! Just—just wait!"

The woman turned back to me, holding a hand up to signal a halt in the execution. She raised her brows as if she mistook my blatant cries for mumbling of curses.

"Don't kill him," I pleaded, my gaze leaving her and wandering to the dark green that regarded me warningly, as though he was fearful of having his life saved. I looked back up at the cruel Templar woman, all the traces of my sardonic nature having vanished with the appearance of the knife held to the elf's neck. "Don't kill him…. I'll go quietly if you just leave him alone."

The black smile returned to her face. "Are you really in the place to be bargaining? You're tied with nothing to do but to wave your silver tongue about and you… bargain with me?"

"Please," I asked, sincerity in my voice one would be hard pressed to find there again. "Leave him alone… it's me you want."

"Hawke." It was uncertainty that leaked through the rage on the Tevinter's face, the angry glow of his markings dying just slightly.

I shook my head in the slightest motion I could manage. "Serah, leave him. Please. I'll go with you to Meredith…. Please."

The woman appraised the offer for a few seconds, her eyes flicking between myself and the man behind me. "Take them both," she commanded. "Meredith will decide the elf's fate."

A blow came from behind. And a blackness swallowed my thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

I was first aware of a splitting ache along the back of my skull, wrapping its fingers around my head and down my jaw. Squeezing my eyes shut, I lifted a hand – which I found the action also brought the other – to my forehead and let out a groan when the touch did nothing to appease the pain. The movement aggravated ripping pain through my right shoulder, bright white searing around the joint. On the other side, the action drove another arrow of agony through my left shoulder, closer to my heart. Fabric tore away from dried blood and the raw wetness began to weep again. A strange burning sensation then made itself known along the inside of my right forearm, aching through the muscle.

My eyes opened to, what looked like, a dingy stone ceiling that one might find in Darktown. Grime fitted itself nicely between the stones and had greased the iron protrusions that bore from it. The iron ran itself down through the air with identical partners before plunging back into the stone by my head. I noticed a glisten run down one of the bars, wetting the floor beneath it and causing dark red to streak up and down the length.

A soft, padding sound came to my ears, pulling my attention to a cage not too far from my own. Inside, paced a slender man, messy ivory hair thrown in front of his face, some of it matted with blood and plastered to his face above his left brow. The former-slave wore no metal shackles around his wrists as I did, his fists clenched as he walked the perimeter of his cell like a wild animal.

"Fenris?" I heard a rough imitation of my voice call out.

Dark eyes shifted down to me and his pacing ceased, his strides lengthening to the wall closest to my own enclosure. The two cells were separated by a few feet and shared no common wall, which quickly quashed my plans for escape.

His deep voice was raw, whether from yelling or from lack of use, I could not tell. "Hawke, are you okay?"

I clambered onto my feet, a bit awkwardly with my hands secured together, and surveyed the rest of the room before answering, taking note of the planks secured to the wall with leather straps hanging lifeless from them. Beside it was a table that was teasingly close to the door, though I could see nothing on it besides a piece of cloth that laid unevenly across the surface. The room was empty otherwise, save for a few wooden buckets and three other cages like ours. "It takes a bit more than a bump on the head to do me in."

"They've come in here twice since I've been awake," he growled, his deep voice coming back to me off the walls. I could hear his teeth come together. "The last time was to inject something into you."

I sighed, searching around once more, seeing no escape route save for a small barred window behind the cells, and it was much too small to fit through. "Can't you phase through these bars?" I asked, a small amount of hope etching the words.

He shook his head angrily. "They're lined with some sort of lyrium I've only seen once before – in the Deep Roads. They have us trapped."

I glanced down at the ache in my forearm, noting how the veins had left angry streaks beneath my skin. "Something tells me that I've upset Meredith more than she'd let on." A note of humor crept into my voice.

The door came open then, crashing loudly against the wall and announcing the four people that strode into the room. The woman whose fiery-red hair enflamed my heart smiled blackly and nodded in mocking respect came first, taking her place on the wall of which was not abused by the door. The second that came in was a soldier that I had no memory of – a burly man with dark hair that was cropped close to his head – lead himself to the door of my prison, a ring of keys grasped firmly by a leather strap at his waist, tinkling with taunting freedom. A mage came next. I could sense his pull on the Fade long before he'd come into the room. The last person to come through the door was none other than Meredith, her cold blue eyes regarding me in dark humor as she took her place by the planks on the wall.

"My dear knight-commander, I have been getting the feeling that you have an annoyance with me," I said, my voice cupped in an acidic quip.

Meredith looked older than I'd ever seen her; great lines marring the plane of her forehead, a deep fold in the flesh between her eyebrows and small crevasses along the outer edges of her eyes.

My door opened, the large man gripping the back of my neck in a cool steel grasp and pushing me closer to the mad woman. Pressure hit in all the right spots along my sensitive shoulder and I was forced to the ground in front of her, wincing as my knees crashed into the hard floor.

"Do you see where you are now, Champion?" she asked rhetorically. "Beneath me, kneeling before the good of man and _serving _me." I saw her metal boots take two small steps forward, clanging to the floor, unyielding and impassionate. She rocked her weight to one foot and, before I had time to flinch, brought the other soundly into my stomach. I fell onto my elbows, air rushing from my lungs as an arrow from a bow.

"Hawke!" Fenris called out behind me, anger ripping at his voice.

She continued as though nothing had happened. "This is where a mage belongs, a humble servant to man, doing only as they are asked." The hard steel of her boot came at me again, this time hitting me in the side of my chest and crushing at least one rib as I descended the rest of the way to the floor. Between gasps of air, I stared up at her, bleary-eyed. "Mages do not pick into the business of mercenaries, slave-traders, Templars or other mages. They simply do as they are commanded when they are called upon by authority and nothing more." I saw her draw back this time, pushing the energy in my body into my fingertips and drawing up the Veil between her and I. The shield I had constructed in my head never made it into the room with me, mana burning profusely in my right hand, but unable to escape from my body. The limb ached with power that had no way out, the joints and bones of the hand throbbing. The kick landed in my exposed stomach once more before rough, bruising pressure was clenched around my upper arms and jerked until my body stood before her.

Metal fingers closed around my throat and Meredith's face drew close, inches from mine as I struggled to breathe. "What part of that escapes you, I wonder? Why have I had to resort to this to get my point across to you?"

I drew in a painful breath, talons of white pain sinking into the flesh of my side as I did so. "I'm – I'm supposed to believe that this is all about m–my being an apostate?"

Her lips pressed into a thin line as her fingers dug into the soft flesh of my throat. Air was in short supply and not soon after, stars began to dance in my vision. "You are the insolent, underhanded and deceitful trash that has stained my name." Black began to creep around the edges of my vision before she released her grip. Blood rushed painfully back into my head and my lungs filled themselves with a torrent of biting wind.

Before I had settled into so much comfort, my body crashed back into another hard surface. This time my hands were freed from the metal shackles and extended to either side of my body where they were fastened with thick leather straps as the matching set were tightened around my ankles.

My head smashed into the wood in the same place that it had been hit earlier in Fenris' mansion, my stomach lurching from the impact and the room dancing before me.

I found my tongue before I had the chance to open my eyes again. "You've stained your own name plenty before I got here. What is this, really?

There was a shrill laugh in the air when the scene rolled around to me. Meredith had a small metal object clutched in her hand and had thrown her head back in amusement. Her face grew close to mine in a way that should have held great intimacy. "I shall see my debt repaid, one way… or another." Her voice was very soft, it touched a nerve in me that her punishing blows had not. "There is many a man that has a plentiful bounty on your head, from this land and the next, you see. Many wealthy magisters from the Tevinter Imperium have an eye on your companion and yourself. " She paused for a moment, her gaze wandering to the recesses of the dark room, a small smile curling her thin lips. "A man by the name of Danarius, I believe, wants his pet back and offered… to take you off of my hands." Her icy stare, returned to mine, blue penetrating deep into my soul. The face neared mine until her lips brushed my cheekbone, her voice drifting to my ear. "He'll be here in a week's time. Until then, you're all mine."

I shook my head against the information. "Danarius is dead. I saw him—Fenris killed…." My breath shook against my better intention and I could feel her smile deepen.

"It seems," she spoke softly, drawing her face back a few inches, "that it is surprisingly hard to kill someone who refuses to die." Meredith's eyes flickered back to Fenris, who was lit by pure rage, blue light erupting from his brands and setting the entire prison in horrific relief. "I'll make you a deal, however…" She smiled, enjoying her game beyond what should have been possible. "Give me the elf's life and there will be no more pain on your behalf, the magister will understand as long as the lyrium in him is recovered. I'll let you be and you'll go on to the Tevinter Imperium and I'll never see you again. What do you say?"

I pushed my head back into the solid structure of my biding table before I threw it forward with as much force as I could muster, smashing the front of my skull into hers. She stumbled back a few steps, a hand flying to her face beneath pinched brows. The metal hand drew away, leaving a trail of red dripping from her nose. Her eyes snapped to the blood on her glove, a wicked grin spreading across thin lips as a biting laugh escaped between them. I had blinked and in that time, the maniacal Templar rushed at me with the gleaming metal object pushed out away from her body.

She pushed the blade up beneath my ribs first, popping through the muscle and membrane. Every breath I pulled in felt like I had accidently swallowed water down my windpipe – choking, coughing and wetting my teeth. Dark and warm ran out of the wound as she retrieved her knife, soaking the front of my tunic they'd given me.

Meredith used the hilt-end of her sword to injure my body in the meanwhile, pummeling me about the stomach and the face. I'd managed to avoid most of the hits to the head, though one caught me just above the eye, spinning my world sideways for a time before it leaked down the side of my face.

I'd antagonized her at first, mocking her every blow and wound she'd inflict on me until she'd bled my wit from me. After the biting tongue had ceased to work, I refused to give her any satisfaction with utterances of discomfort. She'd quickly remedied that when she started breaking my fingers, naming a grievance I'd given her with every crunch of the bone between the metal clamp. I'd called out, first in words and then in mere shrieks of anguish when language had failed me.

Cries of rage echoed my yelps of pain. I could catch a glimpse of the elf in his cell, frantically pacing the length of his cage. He'd throw his hands against the bars in fury, yell, try to reason with me or my torturer and then finally grew silent. Somehow it gave me strength, even if in infinitesimal amounts, to see him alive and well – even if angered – as my beatings continued.

The light from the small window had nearly faded, all that was left was the faint bronze glow of a setting sun. How many hours had it been? Three? Four? It didn't matter, it could have been years for all that I cared, but when the sun had begun disappearing was when Meredith wiped her gloves clean of my blood and left.

The mage that had stood in the corner by the red-haired woman came up to me, then. Her face was hard and unfeeling as she pushed healing mana through my flesh. She was a good healer. She reminded me a bit of Anders in the way that she was gentle and had obviously been trained for years in the art. But somewhere along the way, she had sold her will to do good to Meredith and had bought her freedom with the task of healing the Champion of Kirkwall.

Burning magic knitted my flesh, drew the blood from my lungs and mended the bones in my fingers, leaving nothing but thin pink lines, dried blood and bruises when she was finished. Smaller wounds, raw rub marks on my wrists and ankles, a bloody nose, a broken rib and the small gash on my face, were left alone. The large Templar took me down from the wooden restraint board and threw me back into my cell without my handcuffs, my body hitting the stone floor limply and without a fight. I heard the heavy door come to its frame in a creaking sigh.

My body burned and ached, covered in a slight sheen of sweat. My mind wasn't much in the ways of coherent thought, but I did feel some relief in the fact that the pain was over for now, that until Meredith came back, I was no longer subjected to the endless white-hot pain that she'd inflicted over every inch of my body.

"Fenris?" I asked into the room, barely lit by the pathetic light that came through the solidary window.

The deep hum of his voice held an edge to it that I had only heard once before, on the night that he had left my room. "Yes, Hawke?"

I willed myself to look up into his cell, "Fenris…" I say once again, his name on my tongue bringing a small amount of relief and pain in the knowledge that I am not alone.

He made a sound that could be distantly be compared to a laugh as he crouched close to the ground, his ivory hair falling in his pained face. His lyrium glowed softly with enduring rage on his chin and down the hollows of his throat, casting a faint bluish glow on the surroundings. His eyes burned with fury and anguish in equal parts, looking over my defeated body lying on the cold stone.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, groaning as I rolled myself onto my side. "I'm sorry…. Sorry…."  
He frowned, dark brows coming down over his angular face, but I interrupt before he could question me.

"She's going to kill me," my voice says from a long ways away, brutal and blunt, my mind too fatigued to do much else to dress up the blatant truth. "My mind or my body."

Lids fell over green in what I could interpret as defeat.

I huffed out a painful laugh. "You knew that, didn't you?" my tone bit into the words and I saw him flinch from the corner of my eye.

"Please…" he pleaded with me, his voice raw and raspy. "Just let her –"

"No."

"Adrienne…." My first name on his lips hadn't been there in three years, caressed gently by emotion. It hung in the air, but I shut my eyes against it, reopening them only to the iron bar that lay just a foot from my face.

I looked to the brown streaked bar that separated Fenris and I from freedom, hoping to have set it ablaze with my thoughts, turn the turmoil of emotions in my heart into liquid fire. "I can't." My voice broke on the last word.

A hand extended between the bars, sheathed in a razor-edged gauntlet. I knew the power behind that hand, I'd seen it many times before disappear into the depths of someone's chest, closing around a frantically fluttering heart and smother the life from it. I knew that even when he hadn't faded into a ghost, somewhere between this world and the Fade, the metal casing around his and was sharpened to perfection as I'd accidently cut myself on it that one night three years ago. But it wasn't fear that stirred in me, but a mixture between pain and awe.

Tied there, around the weapon that guarded his wrist, was a bright red scarf. I remembered it as the lengthy piece of cloth that I'd presented him to use as a bookmark when I was teaching him to read. He'd regarded it strangely at first, but had put it in between the pages of the book he'd been working on. And now it was tied to his wrist.

The hand came around to cup my face, his naked palm resting against my cheek. His eyes burned with a vulnerability that I'd never seen before. "I can't…" I whispered again, closing my eyes.

"You can't do this for—"

I pushed his hand from my face. "Fenris." My voice came out harsher than I had intended it as I gripped the bars between us with my good arm and hauled my protesting body into a standing position. "Don't make me fight you…"

Fenris recoiled, his hair falling in between me and his eyes. All I could see were the corners of his full lips turn down and press together a bit tighter. As he drew back into his cell, I grabbed at his wrist before it had slipped from my grasp, my fingers closing around the piece of cloth that neatly encircled his arm. His body went rigid but his shoulders began to square with me again.

"Fenris…" I breathed, barely audible to myself. I looked up from his gauntlet, my eyes meeting his dark ones. "I'll get out of this… I know I will…."

His eyebrows pulled together, though not in the fashion they usually did where they pulled crinkles around his nose, no, they set his face in pain. His voice came in a deep rasp, defensive anger darkening the edges of the sound that usually sent my heart aflutter.

"And if you don't?"

The possibility drug through my brain as blade through flesh, leaving angry red lines in its wake. I didn't care what Meredith did to me, in all honesty. Perhaps I could anger her to the point where she would injure me to where no amount of healing could bring my soul back to my mangled body. Even then, I only half-heartedly considered that as an out. Meredith, though cruel in her ways, was a carefully planned woman. She would find a way to keep her composure and draw out my life until I was severed from the Fade forever.

To live without emotions, without dreams, without magic? Was that even possible?  
I knew the answer to that one, I'd seen the Tranquil walk the halls of the Templar's court. Empty and lifeless were the only two words that I could come up with, even if they were helpful and kind in nature, they still struck me as unnatural and dead.

But they felt no remorse, no pain. Never had I heard a Tranquil speak of their experiences with any more emotion than I would have browsed The Hanged Man's drinks on the night that the group played Diamondback. I wouldn't feel any guilt to having my magic stripped away, no lost at having no emotions or dreams to cloud my thought. My life would be freely lived, studying books that I read only to fill my now-empty mind. It'd be—

No, no, no! How could I even be possibly considering – that? I would be strong. I would fight Meredith as long as it took for me to figure a way out of here, for at least Fenris. If he was free, he could abscond from Kirkwall and go to Orlais, be safe there. Once he was out of sight and long out of the Free Marches – it would take maybe a day, or two – I would give in to Meredith. Let her take my everything from me. But, only after Fenris was gone…. Iron cages, much like the ones we stood in now, tightened around my heart at the thought of him witnessing Meredith strip the life from me.

"I will clear the way for you."


	3. Chapter 3

The large steel door that led into the room swung open much less enthusiastically as it did the last time, a Templar I had not seen before being the one who'd opened it. In his arms were two metal dishes with a few pieces of bread soaked in water, of which most splashed out as it was roughly slipped into the cells with us. The Templar turned and left, a look upon his face that told me that he was just following orders, his gaze never drifting down to my face.

I pushed away from the bars, my limbs heavy and numb, and took a seat next to the soggy bread dish. As I reached down to the pathetic dinner, I came to see that flakes of metal coated my hands and I wiped them on my pants. A black laugh came from between my lips when, to my astute observations, I realized that my hands were coated in blood and dirt as well, something a wipe on old robes wasn't going to fix.

"Are you alright?" the deep hum of the elf's voice came from beside me.

I couldn't help myself but grin, holding my hands up like a small child to show him. "I've been living in Hightown too long. I was actually worried about—"

My voice caught in my throat. Sweet, cold reality flooded me and I quickly scrambled to my feet, ignoring the stabbing ache throughout my body. I grabbed the bar that I had been holding, looking it up and down and reveling in its wetness.

"Rust," I announced, fervor burning in my voice even in its subtlety. "Rust, Fenris, rust." My body fell to its knees, fingers hovering over the weakened bar. One inch of rusted metal stood between me and the outside world. No more pain, no slavery to Danarius. I was so close….

_I_ was close. _Fenris _was not.

Reality crushed my heart between her fingers. It was only my cell that was weakened, not Fenris'. Even if I found a way to break though the iron, I would be the only one out, abandoning the elf to his fate of slavery or death. I saw it in my head perfectly clear – his hair falling over glassy eyes as he stood at Danarius' shoulder, memory wiped and fresh whip marks across the exposed skin of his shoulder. A lump rose in my throat.

A metal hand shot out between the bars, closing around my wrist gently but urgently. My eyes climbed up to the angular face of the Tevinter, his lips pressed tightly together and his brows pulled together. He had seen the cold wave wash the hope from my face, too.

"Fenris, I –"

"You will escape here," he cut me off, his voice low and raspy. "With or without me."

"I ca—"

"Promise me," he demanded, his voice growing louder and harsher.

I ripped my hand away from his grasp, the sharp points of his gauntlets tearing lines in my flesh that rapidly filled with blood. I ignored it, frowning instead at the man standing a few feet from me. Fury boiled in my stomach and heated my skin as I pushed myself to my feet, the pain associated with the movement buried under layers of conflicting emotion. Who did he think I was? I wasn't going to abandon him to his fate, even if that meant that I died at Meredith's blade or was made into a slave to some magister in the Tevinter Imperium.

"No." I said firmly, no hint of anything that he could argue against. "I'm getting you out of here, too, before Danarius comes. You can run to him if you want once I've got the door to your cell open, but until then, we're sticking together."

Metal crashed against metal as he threw his fists at the bars separating us, bluish-white light bathing me in its glow. "Fasta vass!" he growled. "Hawke! Listen to –"  
I pulled my body against the wall of iron separating us. "No, Fenris, no. I am not about to lose you, not to Meredith, not to Danarius and sure as hell not to my selfishness." My voice was menacingly low and dark, even for me. "I lost you to your past once already and I'm not about to give in that easily. And Maker so help me if I'm going to walk away from you now."

That one stung. I could see his anger falter on his face before being replaced with some mixture of helplessness and frustration. Before he could come up with a rebuttal to that one, I started on my work.

I bent to retrieve my metal dish, taking a few bites of the soggy bread before dumping to contents out onto the floor and beginning to take the edge of the plate to the bar, scraping with the edge against the rotted metal as hard as I could without making too much noise. The task consumed me – up, down, push deeper, up, down, push deeper. The world outside of that little metal dish on the iron bar melted away as it did when I was concentrating on healing someone.

I didn't know how long it had been before I heard metal footsteps outside the door that lurched my heart into my throat. I wasn't done yet! In whatever time I'd been allowed, I'd only been able to eat through about a quarter of the metal bar, not nearly enough for me to break through. I panicked and pushed the plate towards the door and moved myself away from the damaged rod, keeping from drawing attention to my newest masterpiece.

A Templar man came through the entrance, the door crashing into the stone wall with a deafening bang that reverberated through the metal. A piece of rope was looped through the bright red Templar's sash at his waist and in his hand he held a ring of keys and a metal syringe, coming closer with every step to my cell.

The lock clicked open as he roughly shoved on of the keys into it, my door coming into my cage. He kicked the metal dish out of the cell and reached down for my hands with the rope, at which point I lunged at him, my fist aiming for his throat. The large Templar moved quickly, parrying my attack and sending the metal needle into the flesh of my thigh, depressing the plunger and pushing white fire into my muscle. My body contracted and I let out a scream as I fell to the ground, putting up little fight as my hands were roughly bound together in front of me. My eyes were clenched shut, so I had no time to try to block the thrust of a metal boot into my already-broken ribs. My cry in pain nearly covered a man's snarl in anger, which had overpowered a cruel laugh as a rustling came from the Templar's belt. I opened my eyes just in time to see another needle, this one glowing faintly of cerulean, before that, too, was forced into the large muscle of my leg. Lyrium. A wicked chuckle came between his lips as my cage door clicked shut and the large metal entrance was sealed off again.

My breath tore from me, ripping pain up my ribs and acid seeping my energy from where the needles had plunged into my thigh, thoughts becoming blurred mixtures of emotions. My eyes opened to the silver pan that was just outside my grasp and then over to the metal pole that wasn't nearly completed in its severing. I had a week. One more week to endure the pain and get through the iron before Danarius came.

One week. Seven nights.

I didn't know if I could last that long.

"Hawke?" Fenris' deep thrum was hoarse, shaken with the fury that lit the walls.

"Ouch," I quipped, forcing a dry laugh as I pressed the palms of my hands into the stone floor. Fire burst through the floor and up my arms before I yanked them away in painful disbelief. "Ouch!"

My body responded accordingly to the shot of lyrium, thrumming with energy and pulsing through my flesh. Usually the power was welcome, increasing my spell output and bringing a high with it – the feeling that nothing could touch you. But this time was different. The pulse of energy couldn't find a way out of my body, the warmth it brought turning into an uncomfortable burn.

"Hot," I announced, my fingertips reddening with artificial light.

The lyrium only grew warmer from there, from a mild discomfort to an intense burn that engulfed my insides, running through my veins and scorching my skin. The fire grew and grew, my body trying to escape a pain that was inside of it. Animalistic panic threw my hand out in front of me, channeling the mana down into the palm in a desperate attempt to rid myself of the agony. The energy rushed to the part, casting dark shadows on the back of my hand in the shape of the bones inside before rushing back into my torso. I gripped an arm around my stomach as the small mouthfuls of bread I'd previously eaten made a reappearance in a violent heave against the clenching of my muscles. I was burning and freezing all at the same time, sweat dewing on my forehead in the short seconds after I'd been injected.

"Hawke!" A bang against the iron and more words of desperation.

I shuddered, my limbs seizing before crashing into the ground, everything I once commanded taut and braced against the hurt that it could not run from. My body was not my own anymore, convulsing against the poison by no command of my own. Rust coated my tongue as fingernails tore at the flesh of my forearms, searching for purchase to claw away from the contagion.

The cell flashed white and crashed into silence. Only the lyrium and I existed in this world of hurt.


	4. Chapter 4

I awoke to the blinding light overhead, searing through my being, casting my sight red when I tried to close my eyes against it. My body dully ached, joints protesting against movement as I rubbed my face free of the hurt. I realized that I must have either fallen asleep sometime in the night or finally passed out from the pain. Both of those had finally brought the sweet embrace of painless escape.

I rolled onto my side, the cold ground I had come to rest on having bore frigid spots into my back that burned with hot blood as the pressure had been relieved. My iron post was still only slightly eaten through, though I had hoped with childish want that it would have resumed my task of wearing its strength away when I was… preoccupied. The metal dish had not been cleaned, but had more water and bread sloshed into its contents. I wondered how much more progress I could gain before Meredith stowed away from the Templar's Courtyard and found herself in the mood to mar me further.

My eyes focused a bit beyond the partially weakened bar into my companion's cage, where I'd expected him to be pursuing his everlasting quest to wear the stone floors deep enough to burrow beneath the cage's perimeter. This was not the case.

Heart dropping through its usual resting place, I found my feet quicker than I had thought was possible in my physical state. Gone. Gone?

I called his name, not managing sound on the first attempt, but succeeding in the second. A distant echo – perhaps in my head? – sounded through the dense stone walls. A cold sweat had beaded along my forehead as I rushed to my locked gate, as though the one foot I had traveled was enough to clarify the illusive noise. I tried again, louder this time, only to receive a bash on the iron door out and a command at silence.

The usually steady beat in my heart had quickened to a frantic thrum almost as fast as the questions that sped through my head. Where had Meredith taken him? What were they doing? Why hadn't they taken me? How long had I been asleep? Was my week up and Fenris in Danarius' capture? No, that couldn't be. The residual amount of blood on the floor that I had lost from my internal drowning was still a deep red in the middle of the deeper pools, not yet having dried completely. Where was he?

It was my turn to pace, frantically padding up and down the length of my cage before finally deciding to put my panic into the iron bar beside me, working with a fervor that could build – or destroy – cities.

Up. Fenris was in danger. If I hurried, put all of my force into this one remedial task, I could perhaps free him. But with what magic? Whatever they had put into me had successfully turned my own gift into a corrosive poison that had tried to eat its way out from the inside. It didn't matter. I would kill them with my own bare hands.

Down. This was all my fault. If I had gone to Darktown first, to warn Anders, he and I would have been able to overwhelm the Templars with all of the refugees there that I knew where trained in combat. They would at least fight for their healer, if not for the Champion of Kirkwall.

Push deeper. They were going to kill him if he wasn't already dead. They were going to torture me in every way they could, even if that meant killing Danarius' prize. Meredith didn't care. As long as my last few moments of being connected to the Fade were spent begging her for mercy, she'd take any wrath the magister could inflict. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring my vision but the lack of sight did nothing to stop me from tearing away the crumbling metal.

A crunch vibrated through the floor. I scrubbed my eyes with my bloodied sleeve, wiping the blur from the severed restraint. I glanced over at the iron door, as if I was able to see if anyone was coming through the opaque obstruction before I gripped the bar with all of my might and heaved backwards. The iron came free with a satisfying groan about three feet up from the floor and I took the pseudo freedom before I could even formulate a plan.

On the wooden table that Meredith had procured most of her torturous instruments laid not more than a small dagger – which I wielded clumsily, but took anyways – and a few instruments which were only effective when their target was restrained. I hefted the newly-freed iron bar and sized it up as my best option for keeping enemies far enough away from a mage who was not trained well in close combat.

A small pop of fear settled in my sternum as I eyed the iron door I knew was guarded. Clenching my teeth against the thought that my own fear was going to kill Fenris, I gripped the bludgeoning weapon and crept up the door, which lacked a handle to open from the inside.

I tapped the end of the make-shift staff on the door, the sound of metal on metal clanging through the air before a sound of human confusion. Apprehension turned to rage as I heard the metal lock begin to slide out of its place in the stone wall and the entrance opened. A bald head poked through, an eyebrow raised as he scanned the room questioningly. I did not wait until he saw my cell lacking a prisoner before I brought the end of the rod down on the back of his skull. A muffled crunch came through the air as metal met bone.

The large man fell to the floor in a clang of shifting armor, falling between the open door and the jam, blood trickling out of the unnatural dent in the back of his—

I looked away before I made myself sick scrutinizing the death I'd inflicted, a fury pooling in my stomach that I had never felt before. I skirted the walls of the stone fortress as I mulled that over. _This is how Fenris must feel. _I thought, a black grin spreading on my face. _Right before he rips someone's heart out of their chest._

Peeking through cracked door after cracked door of the seemingly abandoned stone hall, I found no trace of Fenris, my anger melting into a cruel mixture of fear and panic. My eyes traced up the hall to the stone steps I would have wagered would have lead out to freedom – to a land other than Kirkwall, perhaps. No, I couldn't have done it, even if it was my only way out.

I took a step down the carpeted corridor, away from the steps to freedom, my foot not finding the rough red rug that lined the stone floor, but a black flight feather. I cocked my head, bending – to the best of my ability, now that shock and adrenaline had finally taken their numbing effects with them – and taking the soft thing between my fingers, twirling it gently.

It was in this small object – a simple feather, perhaps nothing more than another piece of paraphernalia that none would have cherished, having been shed so carelessly – I found hope. Having fallen from the strange armor that I'd only seen protect the lyrium-engraved elf, it pointed me to the large metal obstruction, shut tightly and looming blackly over the corridor. Few inches of metallic obstruction kept me from the one that I had spent three years wondering if I'd ever be able to call my own.

The latch moved with more noise than I had anticipated, grinding against itself out of years of neglect. I shoved my weight against it – my shoulder screaming in protest – for the last bit of it to clear its hold before I pushed the dark thing into the room.

I had to wonder what I would find behind the door. Part of me hoped that he would merely be housed in the small room and none the worse for wear. Perhaps all I would find was an empty room, taunting and black, a void for my hopes. A small stab of fear knew that there was the possibility that I was too late, that Fenris was already dead and all that was left was for me to discover his body, carelessly housed for his master to retrieve.

A solitary lantern was lit in the right corner, scarcely enough light to tell the wounded man from the rest of the wall. Blood leaked black and shone around the large metal thing protruding beneath where his heavy chest plate should have resided, barely moving with each breath he pulled between his teeth.

"Fenris," I heard myself breathe, the metal rod I held dropping loudly to the stone floor, reverberating in the small room. I made the conscious effort to move my feet that had melted themselves to the ground out of shock. Half-open eyes found their way up to my face as I worked at the straps on his wrist. "We're getting out of here. Can you walk? Fenris – can you hear me?"

Even in the dim light of the single flame, I could see his usually tanned skin was deathly pale, its color having leaked into the large black puddle on the floor. His head bobbed faintly in acknowledgement to my words, trying twice before he was able to form any words. "Yes… I am fine."

He had gripped the metal protrusion beneath his ribs, mere moments after he had found the floor, new life pouring quickly from the wound as the gleaming object had been torn free and clattered noisily to the stone ground. Fenris clamped a hand over the bloody puncture, bared his teeth and sucked in a large amount of air.

"We need to go," I whispered glancing suspiciously out the door for any Templar activity, bending to gather my newly found staff from the ground. "Do you need help?"

"No." His voice was harsh against the offer for assistance whether from the pain or from the ridiculous notion that he would require any aid, I didn't know, but even in its bluntness, it was alarmingly airy.

Metal brushed against metal from outside the door, armored footsteps falling rapidly and swords raking out of their sheaths. Templars. I braced futilely for the flood of soldiers that would rush through the door and likely kill the both of us in a matter of seconds. We were no match – a wounded warrior and a mage with no magic – against the torrent of Meredith's puppets that would slaughter us. Please let it end quickly….

Cries of men reverberated down the stony halls, the dull popping sound of a blade piercing flesh and a coy laugh that I knew only too well. A burst of green magic flashed down the corridor from the main room, a small snippet of a language that fell only on the elvish tongue. Isabella? Merril? No, it couldn't be… they weren't here. They would have had no idea where we would have gone. This was a trick, it had to be.

"Say '_Hello'_, Bianca!"

Varric. He was here, too. They had come….

The metal fell from my hands as I threw my head out around the edge of wall the thick iron door was buried in just in time to see the gentle healer of Darktown give in to the spirit that shared his flesh, the Fade breaking through his skin and casting shadows on the walls as a spell of pure energy obliterated a handful of Templars.

My heart rose in my chest, beating painfully with burning relief from my navel to my throat. Freedom danced along the lithe form of the Dalish, glimmered in the twin blades disappearing into human flesh, burst from the crossbow clutched skillfully in thick fingers and thudded through the solid shield wielded by the warrior I owed my life to time and time again.

"Hawke?!" the dwarf cried as another arrow launched itself from his beloved weapon and into the eye of a shorter soldier of the Chantry, the body falling limp as a doll thrown the ground. "Hawke! Fenris! Are you guys here?!"

I called back to him, waiting for the elf to trudge painfully out of the room before myself. My eyes fell to the usually gentle and silent step of the warrior, now falling heavily, laboriously, before they ceased to fall at all. Knees gave way to the ground, followed by the dull thud of his body falling to the unforgiving stone floor of the fortress. Lax fingers pulled away from his wound, life trickling slower than the norm to darken the crimson rug beneath him. Thin slivers of green glinted beneath lids, glassy and unoccupied.

Sweet relief vanished so quickly, one had to wonder if it was ever truly there. The bitter void that it left was quickly filled with a torrent of stabbing fear – any idea of freedom vanished, any notion of salvation evaporated. My jarred onto its knees more forcefully than the lithe Tevinter did, fingers tearing at the buckles to his jerkin – panic complicating the simple clasps to intricate locks – and pulling the leather away from the damaged skin. Now that the armor that had hidden the extent of the damage was stripped away, I could see the shredded flesh of his stomach. Delicate curls of lyrium were stained dark, a void of inflamed tissue extending deep within his body, muscle peeled apart to make way from the now absent invasion.

I sent all of my might down into my fingertips, burning fury building in the extremities as the frantic mana searched wildly for a way out of my body. Bone ached and hands throbbed, but no drain of the magic came. Fenris' flesh didn't knit itself together at my command, his shallow breaths didn't deepen themselves and the lack-luster flutter of his heart didn't strengthen. He was dying and I couldn't stop it.

Helpless tears blended the colors before me as I pressed my hands into the wound to slow the loss of life as much as I could. "No, no,no… Fenris, look at me. Stay awake… please, oh Maker." The glowing light that was the healer of Darktown was deaf to my pleas, taken by the injustice that I now understood. "Anders, please, Anders, help him…"

I blinked hard, liquid burning in one of the many cuts that ran along the skin of my face, clear vision coming to the slender form of the Dalish pariah, her staff whirling through the air, great flames jutting forth from the end as before the bladed end came around and cleaved the head from a man twice her girth. Beneath that slender form was a power that I had seen utilized a few times before – power great enough to cleanse an ancient mirror, to take down Dalish barriers constructed to protect their sacred burial… power great enough to heal someone from the brink of death.

"Merrill!" My voice broke on the call, and though it was scarcely loud enough to be heard over the battle cries, clashing metal and crushing armor, it had pricked the ear of the elf enough to draw her attention. Large hazel eyes grew even larger when they drew to the source of the cry, the small being sprinting to the other side of Fenris, frantic words coming quickly in a tongue I did not understand.

The Dalish fell beside Fenris, words finally slowing enough for me to understand. "What happened?!"

I shook my head. "Can you heal him?" I managed to get out, more as a question of ability than as a favor.

"Lethallan, I don't think – I… I've never…"  
"Can you do it with blood magic?" She stalled, lips quivering with a response. "Merrill!"

"Maybe... Hawke, I don't know if –"

"Merrill, now!"


End file.
